Massively OP’s MJ may not be the most proficient with shooters, but that doesn’t mean she won’t give a new one a go! Someone has to be cannon fodder, right? Ironsight just launched its open beta this week and she is jumping in to try it out. Join us live at 12:00 p.m. as MJ attempt to stay alive in…

Lock and load, Ironsight is ready to go. Aeria Games’ military multiplayer shooter went into open beta testing on Thursday, allowing just about everyone the chance to duke it out in the near future.

The beta build is an improvement on the previous phases, as it contains four new maps, two additional game modes, and a new mission. Players can also claw over each other’s corpses to attain the best standing in the ranking system, which also went live with this patch.

We will be investigating this shooter and conducting an experiment to see just how many times and in how many ways MJ can get herself killed. Tune in to MOP TV this Saturday at noon!

It’s 2025. A megatsunami has caused massive damage all over the world, and resources have become limited. Instead of sharing and caring for each other, nation-states formed to battle over what’s left using near-future technologies.

Welcome to Ironsight. This is Aeria Games’ new multiplayer shooter, and you can experience it sooner than you think. Featuring PvE and PvP content, Ironsight equips players with cutting-edge weapons tech (including drones) and sends them across the globe.

Testers have already clocked around 5.37 years of /played time in the game so far, but this number should shoot on up when the open beta arrives on February 1st. Ten playable maps and over 100 weapon types are planned for the game. If you want to get in early to the OBT or secure some extras, there are player packs for sale starting at $20.

Neowiz has a new dev blog up on Steam today featuring none other than Bless Online’s dungeons, which include episodes relating to the main storyline, low-key jaunts for soloers, and hardcore raids for 10 bodies.

“The most basic reason for exploring dungeons is for the special items, but clearing dungeons with friends and party members is also a fun and worthwhile experience!” the Korean studio says. “Dungeons, one of Bless Online’s strengths, are places that utilize the strategies and tactics of each class, and are designed to maximize players’ pleasure and sense of accomplishment.” A real sense of accomplishment, mind you, not this kind.

“Will this mean Bless Online is coming to Steam? Is it being released globally? The answer to both questions are… resounding ‘Yes!’ We are so glad you are here and are grateful for your support. Bless Online development team has been busy for the good part of this year. We’ve taken all of the feedback from our community to make the game better. Our intention is to return to you when we have the game we are all proud of. The development team will be working night and day to improve and polish the experience until the launch in 2018.”

Ever pause during your day and find yourself wondering, “Whatever happened to that game?” With hundreds upon hundreds of online titles these days, it’s surprisingly easy for MMOs to fall through the cracks and become buried as more aggressive or active games take the spotlight.

Well, every so often we here at Massively Overpowered find ourselves curious what has transpired with certain MMOs that we haven’t heard from in quite a while. Have we missed the action and notices? Has the game gone into stealth maintenance mode? What’s the deal? What has it been up to lately?

Following the cancellation of the western version of Bless Online, Neowiz surprised everyone by announcing that it would be publishing the game here in the west on its own. Then last week, it announced a “Rebuild Project” for the whole game, which is expected to allow Neowiz giant do-over on everything from making gear feel more important to character progression, plus the revamped combat, unique class skills, better mount and pet content, a non-sucky crafting system, a tighter UI, and new PvP content. We’ve presumed that upgrades to the game overseas will eventually make their way to the version being promised for the west, particularly given that it was supposedly canceled originally over “quality standards” and “technical difficulties [that could not] be overcome.” Indeed, the long delay was at least in part a result of the combat system do-over Aeria said the game needed.

Since then, the entire official Korean site has been taken over with a huge “REBUILD” banner and Neowiz has published a fresh dev blog outlining the project’s seven main goals and homing in on the first: character growth. Google Translate isn’t exactly trustworthy here, but the gist seems to be that the studio finds the leveling up process both opaque in terms of power and limited in that gear capped progress. Under Rebuild, items themselves will pick up durability and reinforcements, what sounds like an evolution system for weapons, plus a disassembly system for junk.

Check out the whole thing on the official site — just bring your Korean dictionaries!

Yesterday Neowiz announced what it’s calling the “Rebuild Project” for the whole game, which will allow the studio to “abandon the current structure and make it from scratch,” gutting some of the game’s underlying systems and content and adding new. Specifically, Neowiz says it’s making gear feel more important to character progression, revamping combat, retooling class skills and unique feel, creating variety and fun for mounts and pet content, adjusting crafting to not be “useless,” and improving the UI experience. New PvP content (a capture-the-flag map?) is also under development for August; the screenshots in this post show the new area.

Last week, both Neowiz and Aeria Games confirmed that Aeria is no longer serving as the western Bless Online publisher — worse, Bless appeared to be entirely canceled for our region. “Gamigo announces that the MMORPG Bless Online will not be published in Europe and North America,” read the formal announcement. “The collaboration had to be cancelled because after extensive testing the game did not meet the quality standards of both Neowiz Games and the gamigo group. […] Together with Neowiz we have come to the conclusion that the technical difficulties cannot be overcome, so we agreed not to complete the game for our respective markets.”

Done deal, right? Apparently not so much. “The game will not be published” turns out to mean “we will publish the game ourselves.”

“You must be curious about future Bless in EU/NA as we ended our contract with AG,” Neowiz told MMORPG.com. “NBS believes the EU/NA Bless fans are very valuable to us so we commit to deliver game updates directly to you. We will surely present you with improved Bless in the future.”

On this week’s show, Justin and Bree talk about the huge revelation of Cryptic’s Magic: The Gathering MMO, the premature demise of Bless Online, World of Warcraft’s new launch, and more!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

The Neowiz statement that Aeria Games is no longer serving as the western Bless Online has now been backed up by Gamigo, Aeria’s parent company, though contrary to the translated reports from yesterday, Gamigo says it wasn’t a unilateral decision by Neowiz — and it appears that the game has been canceled for our region entirely, not simply shelved for a new publisher.

“gamigo announces that the MMORPG Bless Online will not be published in Europe and North America. The cooperation between the Korean games developer Neowiz Games and the gamigo group has been terminated by mutual agreement. Unfortunately, the collaboration had to be cancelled because after extensive testing the game did not meet the quality standards of both Neowiz Games and the gamigo group. Jens Knauber, COO of the gamigo group, regrets this development: ‘Together with Neowiz we have come to the conclusion that the technical difficulties cannot be overcome, so we agreed not to complete the game for our respective markets. This has not been an easy decision for us and we put a lot of thought into this step. On the other hand, we have a number of interesting new releases coming up to complement our already strong portfolio, so our players can look forward to several new games in the near future.'”

Korean gaming site Inven is reporting that Neowiz, the Korean-born developer and publisher of the MMO, has “canceled the service contract agreement between the two companies […] smoothly after consulation,” meaning that Gamigo and Aeria will no longer be publishing the game in the west.

We’ve seen a few headlines this morning suggesting that Bless’ western service has been entirely canceled, but we cannot confirm that. Neowiz says it will be focusing on the Japanese service “for now,” but does not say whether it has plans to find a new western publisher.